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Paizo's Pathfinder Alpha 2

It came out semi-recently, and among other things, it has the Paladin, Barbarian, and Sorcerer. You can check it out here. (You’ll need an acct but it won’t cost you any money.)

So, what’s new?

Barbarians get “rage points.” They can spend rage points to enter and maintain rage. As well, they can spend rage points to activate certain abilities while in rage. This stuff isn’t that striking, but Pathfinder’s increased number of feats alone is enough to make this already solid class even more appealing.

Paladins are, for the most part, unchanged, except that they can opt for an ability that allows them to temporarily enchant their weapon with bad-assitude instead of getting a mount. Again, Paladins weren’t really in dire need of a buff, and they’re getting more feats just like everyone else now, too.

Sorcerers can pick a lineage, and that grants them abilities that they acquire over time. Most of them include a melee touch attack or buff, as well as some resistances or additional ways to move.

I’m sure there’s more stuff, but at this point, I’ve only had a chance to flip through it rather than read it thoroughly.

Giving the Barbarian more active abilities is a great idea. “Rage points” are something I’m not really sold on. Exalted soured me a bit on point-based systems, and it seems like it adds another layer of book-keeping. But then if it were up to me they’d be using a token system similar to Iron Heroes.

The sorcerer abilities (and I care mainly because I’m playing one in a game right now) are pretty cool in terms of flavor, but they fell short of my expectations in terms of interesting stuff. (Yeah, I’m spoiled by 4e.) Many are cooler than others. What’s a real downer for me is the fact that you have to be in melee for a lot of the attacks to be useful, which is a pretty horrible idea for a caster. The d6 might mitigate this, so I suppose I’ll have to see it in play.

Anyway, despite whatever flaws, the DM for my game has proposed that we convert and I am unreservedly in favor of this. The main disadvantage would be that there’s no monk write-up, and we have a monk in our group. Monks aren’t terribly in need of a buff, so it might be enough that he’ll get a d8 and more + new feats. But we’re not going to go with ahead with the conversion unless everyone’s on board, and this is one potential sticking point.